Chapter 1

I see a post on the university forum asking for help with an entrepreneurship class project, so I join the group using my student account.

Then my professor instincts kick in.

I fix a few financial models, clean up their market strategies, and suddenly everyone in the group is losing their minds.

Every day, they call me a genius, begging me to look over one more detail, one more revision, one more set of numbers.

Two months later, the project is nearly flawless.

And the group chat suddenly goes dead.

Curious, I do a little digging and discover they've secretly made another one without me.

"He's not even officially on the team. Why should we give him any of the prize money?"

"Exactly. Only our names are on the roster. The finals are tomorrow. He'd better not show up and try to take credit."

"That's tens of thousands more for each of us if we cut him out."

I stare at the screen and laugh.

So this was never a class project at all. Funny. Because tomorrow, when they walk into that final, I'll be the one sitting in the center of the judges' panel.

Chapter 1

The students had made a new group chat, apparently forgetting that one of the accounts in it was one we shared. The second I logged in, messages started pouring in.

"What's so special about him being a senior? We only treated him like some big shot because we were being nice. Guy doesn't know anything."

"Exactly. What did he even do? Talk at us for a while and tweak a few numbers? We're the ones who stayed up all night writing everything, putting the slides together, and running around getting stuff done. Why should he get a cut?"

"Right. We stick to the story that this was just a final project. And nobody says a word in the old chat. Leave it dead for a few days, then delete the group."

A final project? That was the excuse they'd used to rope me into this in the first place. And now they were planning to ride that lie all the way to the end.

Annoyed, I opened the old group chat, switched to my own account, and sent a message.

"I've been advising you on this project for a while now, so I need to make something clear. The core financial models and market projections in these reports rely, in part, on sources and levels of detail that are much closer to what you would find in an actual business plan.

"That means they're fine for a standard class assignment, but they absolutely should not be used in a business competition. If you submit them for one, the judges are going to start asking where those numbers came from."

I'd been in the group for two months, and I rarely spoke to them in such a formal, professional tone.

If they took the warning seriously and rebuilt their work using publicly available data, I was willing to pretend I knew nothing. I wouldn't make things difficult for them at tomorrow's final, either.

But within seconds, the new group chat exploded.

The most nervous one on the team, Tristan Vale, immediately sent a horrified reaction meme. "Wait, if he's saying all that… does that mean he knows we're entering the competition?"

Their team leader, Maris Elley, brushed it off. "What are you freaking out about? And spare me the whole 'friendly warning' act. Who does he think he is, talking down to us like that?

"He knows he's not getting a dime out of this, so now he's panicking. He's just trying to scare us into backing out."

Another girl on the team, Elowen Pryce, was quick to agree. "Maris is right. He just can't stand the thought of us succeeding with something he worked on. God forbid we do well without everyone knowing how brilliant he is."

Sitting in my office, I couldn't help but laugh. So they did know it was my work.

When I first joined the group, the entire project had been a train wreck. Nothing fit together, and half of it barely made sense.

I walked them through everything, from the underlying theory to how it was actually applied. But every draft they sent me came back riddled with mistakes, until eventually it became easier to fix the work myself than explain the same problems for the fifth time.

By the end of it, I'd sacrificed night after night of sleep building practically the entire thing from the ground up.

And all that "staying up late writing everything, putting the slides together, and running around getting stuff done" they were so proud of?

They'd downloaded whatever they could find online, dumped it into a premade PowerPoint template, then tossed it into the group chat and passed it off as research they'd supposedly gone out and conducted themselves.

Now they'd ridden my work all the way to the finals and decided the last thing they needed was me.

Ten minutes later, Maris finally replied in the old group chat. "Fine. Since you want to put everything out in the open, I will too. All that 'guidance' you gave us? It was basic theory anyone could look up online. We already knew all of it. We never needed you to explain it in the first place."

Chapter 2

"And now that you've heard that we made it to the finals, suddenly you're trying to scare us off? Come on. You obviously just want a piece of the prize money."

Elowen sent an eye-roll emoji. "You couldn't even put together a team of your own, so you jumped into some random group chat, threw around a few pointers, and now you think you're entitled to a cut? That's shameless."

With every message, they got nastier.

I frowned and answered them plainly. "I joined because you posted on the forum asking for help with a class assignment. I had no idea you were entering a competition."

I added, "I have zero interest in your prize money."

The message had barely gone through before Elowen hit me with another eye-roll reaction. "Oh, please. If you didn't want the money, why would you go out of your way to help a bunch of strangers?"

She added, "Unless… you saw our team photo, spotted someone you liked, and decided this was your chance to impress her?"

A guy named Lucas Ashmore immediately jumped in. "Well, Maris is obviously the best-looking girl on the team."

Maris seemed to find that hilarious. "Oh. So that's what this is about. You did all this for me? Hate to break it to you, but I have standards. And you? Yeah, no. You wouldn't have a chance with me even if you were the last guy on earth."

Maris dropped the only selfie I'd ever posted into the group chat.

We normally communicated through the forum and its group chat. Maris was the only one who had my personal contact.

Back when the team had no money to get the project off the ground, I'd fronted them five thousand dollars. Maris was the one I sent it to.

Then last month, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. I'd called in a favor to get her an appointment with a leading specialist and covered the medical expenses she couldn't afford upfront.

Afterward, Maris had called me in tears. She could barely get the words out as she thanked me over and over. She told me that her mother had started chemotherapy, and the doctors were optimistic about how well she was responding.

Apparently, none of that mattered anymore. Now she was passing my photo around for everyone to laugh at, picking apart my appearance and throwing insults at me like I was some creep who wouldn't leave her alone.

For the first time, I genuinely regretted ever joining that group. I'd spent two months cleaning up their mess, fixing their work, and helping them whenever they came to me. They didn't deserve a second of it.

"I've said what I needed to say. If you still want to take that project into the competition, go ahead. Just don't say I didn't warn you."

After I sent the message, I realized Maris had kicked me out of the group.

I didn't give it much thought. I had my own work to get back to.

By the time I finished what I was working on, Maris had made a new post on the forum and tagged my student account.

The caption read, "I've put up with this long enough. I'm posting so nobody else gets taken advantage of.

"This senior offered to 'mentor' our team, but once he joined our startup group, all he ever gave us were vague suggestions. We later found out that the models and recommendations he provided were ripped off from other people's work.

"We didn't confront him because we wanted to show him some respect. Instead, we worked our asses off and made it to the finals on our own. Now he's suddenly demanding 20 thousand dollars in consulting fees plus 90% of the prize money. And apparently, if we don't pay up, we're going to regret it."

My entire body went cold. The post had only been up for 40 minutes, and it already had hundreds of replies.

Everyone was furious.

"If he stole someone else's work and passed it off to you, isn't that straight-up plagiarism?"

"People really will do anything for money. He plagiarizes other people's work and still has the nerve to demand 20 grand? Our university's startup competition specifically says teams aren't allowed to bring in outside mentors at all, never mind pay them."

"Mentor? He's just some upperclassman. Don't flatter him. He'd probably love hearing you call him that."

Then someone finally questioned the story.

"Okay, but you can't just accuse someone without proof. I've seen Caspian Rooke's comments on other posts, and he's given people plenty of solid advice before."

Elowen promptly appeared in the replies. "Oh, we have proof. Screenshots below! And while we're at it, Caspian also tried to get with our team leader. She turned him down, and he's been harassing her ever since. Seriously disgusting."

I stared at the screen in disbelief.

They had taken completely ordinary conversations from the past two months, cut out whatever fragments suited their story, stitched them back together, and added ominous captions beside each screenshot to tell everyone exactly what they were supposed to see.

Chapter 3

Across more than a dozen screenshots, they'd managed to paint me as a serial plagiarist who'd aggressively demanded both a consulting fee and a share of the prize money.

They'd even made it look like I'd sent Maris a string of creepy, suggestive messages, constantly hinting that I wanted to sleep with her.

But what really made my blood boil was the doctored payment record.

I had sent her five thousand dollars. They'd flipped the transaction around and claimed Maris had paid me five thousand dollars to leave her alone—that was how bad the so-called harassment had gotten.

I took a deep breath and immediately started typing out an explanation. Except I couldn't post it. A forum moderator had restricted my account. Every function had been disabled, including replies.

Then I remembered something Maris had mentioned before. One of the moderators was her roommate.

My phone buzzed several times. Maris had sent me a laughing reaction. "Seen the post yet? You know, when you really think about it, you brought this on yourself.

"From the day you joined, it was always 'this doesn't work' or 'that's not good enough'. You kept forcing us to add more details to the financial model. Tristan's already anxious enough as it is, and you tore into his work so many times that he completely lost it.

"Elowen wanted to make our market growth projections look a little stronger, and you just had to insist 50% was ridiculous. You wouldn't let us go above a conservative 15%. She got so pissed she smashed her mouse back at the dorm.

"You're a student too. We called you our senior to be polite, and somehow you actually started believing you were important. Here's the truth. We've been sick of you breathing down our necks for weeks. If you'd stayed out of it, our project would've been ten times better."

I bit my lip, but before I could respond, every message she'd sent me disappeared one by one.

So that was the game.

The forum post was insurance. They wanted their version out first, in case I reported them. And now she was deleting her messages because she knew better than to leave evidence behind.

I'd seriously underestimated them. They hadn't decided to cut me out on impulse. They'd planned this from the start.

"Maris, aren't you worried something might go wrong at the finals tomorrow?" I asked.

"Still trying to scare me?"

The message vanished almost immediately. Then another appeared. "Although, thanks for the reminder, Caspian. You'd better stay far away from the finals tomorrow. Otherwise, we'll release everything else we've got on you.

"You're graduating soon, aren't you? It would be a shame to destroy your reputation this close to the finish line. Imagine being such a disgrace that you have to drop out."

My reputation?

I saved the screen recording I'd made, then opened their forum post again.

Maris and all five of her teammates had piled on, each with their own story about what a nightmare I supposedly was.

According to them, I controlled every decision the team made. I'd borrowed money from several of them, and whenever they refused to lend me more, I'd gone off on them.

And apparently, even that wasn't enough. Now they were threatening to ruin my reputation if I didn't stay out of their way.

Except there was one problem.

I was one of the judges tomorrow. Why would I stay away?

The moment I walked into the presentation hall on the day of the finals, someone shoved me back out and dragged me off to the side.

"You've seriously got a death wish, don't you? We told you not to come, and you showed up anyway."

It was Elowen who'd pushed me. Maris stood beside her in a tailored skirt suit, clearly dressed and ready to give the presentation for their team.

Her eyes traveled slowly from my face down to my shoes. Then she gave me another once-over and clicked her tongue. "Huh. You look better in person. That picture didn't do much for you, but the body's definitely working for me."

She smirked. "Tell you what, Caspian. Maybe I'll let you take me out sometime. For now, be a good boy and get out of here. Because if you don't, we can always give everyone on that forum a few more things to talk about."

I looked over the six of them. They barely resembled the bright, friendly people smiling in their team photo. If nothing else, the whole mess had taught me one thing—never assume you knew what someone was like from a picture.

That mistake had bought me two months of trouble.

"Maris, we'll deal with your forum post later. But right now, you need to move. The finals are about to start."

All six of them stared back at me with varying degrees of contempt. Not one moved aside.

Only Tristan seemed uncertain. He hesitated before speaking up in a small voice. "Wait… Don't you need an invitation to get in here? He's not registered as part of our team, so how did he even get inside?"

Chapter 4

That made the others pause. A few of them glanced back toward the staff checking invitations at the entrance.

The finals were about to start, and I didn't have time for this. I was about to tell them exactly why I was there when realization suddenly dawned on Maris. Her smile turned even more mocking.

"Oh, I get it. Did you sleep your way in? One of the judges maybe? Or some angel investor?" She looked me over again. "Broad shoulders, narrow waist, abs… Yeah, I can see it. You're exactly the type some of those older women would go for."

My expression hardened. "Maris, watch what you're saying. You're making things up about me, and if you keep spreading slander, I'll report it to the police."

The group burst out laughing.

"Go ahead," Elowen said. "We've got proof."

She pulled something up on her phone and held the screen out toward me, her chin raised smugly. The moment I saw it, my blood ran cold.

They had taken my selfie and used AI to fabricate dozens of explicit images of me. The women in the pictures had all been censored beyond recognition. I was the only identifiable person, with my face and name deliberately attached to every image.

"You've lost your minds. Do you have any idea you're committing a serious crime?"

Elowen didn't even flinch. "How's this a crime? That's your face, isn't it? Caspian is your name, isn't it? What about this is fake? How is telling the truth a crime?"

This had gone far beyond some ugly argument on a student forum.

I pulled out my phone to call the police, but Elowen lunged forward and snatched it out of my hand.

"Give that back."

"Come take it."

She slipped my phone into her pocket with a triumphant grin. The bigger guys on the team immediately stepped in front of me, blocking my way.

My stomach sank. This was getting dangerous.

A few students passing behind us spotted the group and called out. "Hey, Maris. I thought your team only had six people. Who's… Oh, wait. That's the guy from the plagiarism post! Did you guys give in? You're actually paying him the consulting fee and giving him part of the prize money?"

Maris put on a pained expression. "No. He got himself in here through… other means."

Elowen made sure the images on her phone were visible. Within seconds, every student nearby was talking.

"No way. That's insane! How desperate do you have to be to win before you start pulling something like that?"

Elowen grinned and gave an exaggerated wink. "First prize is 1.5 million dollars. If you don't have the talent to get there on your own, I guess finding the right person to sleep with is one way to do it."

Lucas nudged her arm. "You sure it was only one person?"

They all cracked up, sharing the joke between them. Even Tristan, who had been hanging awkwardly at the back of the group, started laughing.

A chill went through me. There were guys and girls among the six of them, but apparently none of that mattered. For a bigger share of the prize money, every last one of them was willing to humiliate me like this.

The students who'd stopped to watch immediately started asking Elowen to send them the pictures, practically giddy over the scandal.

"I just dropped them in our department group chat. I swear, that chat has never been this alive."

"Hey, what department are you in? Give us a heads-up so we don't ruin your chances with all the rich women over there."

Within moments, dozens of people had crowded around me. They packed in so tightly that there wasn't even a gap to squeeze through. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn't.

My hands curled into fists. Then I gave a cold laugh. "When exactly did I ever tell any of you I was a student?"

For a moment, they just stared at me. A few exchanged confused looks.

Maris waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, please. If you're not a student, what are you? Campus security?"

Her eyebrows shot up as though she'd just uncovered an even bigger scandal. "Wow. That actually makes this worse. A security guard pretending to be an upperclassman so he can weasel his way into our team and take our prize money? You've got some nerve."

At the word "security guard", several people in the crowd immediately backed away, some making exaggerated faces as they scattered.

One of the guys on the team checked his watch. "We need to go. We're presenting first, and it's about to start. He's already wasted enough of our time."

"Exactly. We've got a real shot at taking first place today. Once that 1.5 million dollars hits, we're set!"

Chapter 5

"Maris, I guess you don't have to worry about your mom's medical bills anymore. Didn't you borrow another 100 thousand dollars from relatives? You can pay all of that back too!"

At the mention of that money, something dark flickered across Maris' face as she looked at me.

So she'd never told them where that money had actually come from—me.

"You guys go inside and check in," Maris said. "Lucas, you and one of the others stay with me. We'll find somewhere to keep him until our presentation's over. I'm not letting him sabotage this."

"What? You can't—"

Before I could finish, Lucas clamped a hand over my mouth. He and another guy grabbed me and forcibly dragged me toward the restroom.

I fought them the entire way, trying to call for help, but everyone who recognized me only stopped to stare and gossip.

"Did you see the group chat? That's Caspian Rooke, the guy who plagiarized everything, tried to extort his team, harassed their leader, and supposedly slept his way into the finals."

"Look at Maris. She's furious. I would be too. Imagine having the biggest competition of your life ruined by some creep like that."

They shoved me into the restroom and shut the door behind us. Maris checked the stalls to make sure nobody else was inside before finally signaling for Lucas to let me go.

"Maris, if you don't want this to turn into something much more serious, let me out." Then I looked her straight in the eye. "I'm one of the judges for today."

Maris arched an eyebrow. "You? A judge? Caspian, if you're going to lie, at least make it believable."

Her gaze traveled over me again before settling into an openly suggestive stare. "Although I'll give you this. You look a lot better in person than I expected.

"I'm presenting in a few minutes, so how about you cooperate and give me something to remember you by? If we win, I might even throw a little money your way. And if you keep me entertained after today, maybe I'll make it worth your while."

The look in her eyes told me she wasn't joking.

Lucas and the other guy each grabbed one of my arms, holding me in place. Cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck.

"Maris, how do you think your mother would feel if she knew you were doing this?"

"My mom? She doesn't know anything. She still thinks that money came from a scholarship."

She stepped closer and started removing my belt. I tried to fight them off, but Lucas tightened his grip while she raised her phone to record.

Then someone pounded on the restroom door. "Maris, come on! The competition's starting!"

"What a shame." Maris shrugged. "Don't worry, Caspian. I'll come find you when my presentation's over."

The three of them left, shutting the door behind them. I waited until their footsteps had faded before rushing to the door and shouting for help.

Thankfully, someone passing by heard me and let me out. I barely had time to thank them. I straightened my shirt and headed straight for the presentation hall.

By the time I walked in, the first two teams were already waiting in the wings.

Maris stood with her team, looking perfectly polished, smiling brightly as if nothing had happened. Whenever the host introduced another judge, she bowed deeply, clearly determined to make the best possible first impression.

Then she saw me, and her smile froze.

The rest of the team noticed me a second later. Every one of them went still. Their eyes darted nervously toward Maris.

I didn't say a word. Right in front of them, I walked to the judges' table, pulled out the chair in the center, and sat down.

All the color drained from Maris' face. At that exact moment, the host introduced me. "Our next judge recently joined our university after transferring from one of the country's leading institutions. He also holds the distinction of being the youngest professor of economics in the university's history.

"Please welcome our head judge for today's competition, Caspian Rooke!"